Historically, automatic car washes have included an air blower system for blowing water off of vehicles after being washed, in order to avoid leaving water marks on the vehicle surface. The original air blowers were positioned away from the travel path of a car moving through a car wash, so that there would be no contact between the air blower nozzles and the vehicle. This required using very large (such as 100 to 150 HP) and extremely noisy blower motors.
In order to reduce the size of the blower motors, air distribution systems were developed that included nozzles positioned close to, and sometimes in contact with the vehicle surface. An example of such as system is the model having the proprietary name of "The Stripper" manufactured by Proto-Vest, Inc. of Oxford, Mich. This blower system is also covered by various U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,409,035 for a "Clamp for Varying the Hinging Action of a Fluid Stripping Bag", 4,446,592 for a "Nozzle Assembly", and 4,589,160 for "Apparatus for Stripping Fluids Including Dimensionally Stable and Substantially Rigid Bag".
This proprietary blower system uses a smaller blower motor since it uses fibrous bags that are substantially rigid when inflated. The commercial version of the bag does not hinge to accommodate differences in vehicle surfaces. Further, the blower motor is bulky and generates a substantial amount of noise, since it is typically mounted close to the vehicle path to minimize the amount of ducting required to distribute the compressed air to the nozzles. Also, the varying lengths of ducts, from short ones near the motor, to long ones located on the opposite side of the car track, result in some inequality of air pressure applied to each of the nozzles. This results in some inconsistency in the effectiveness of the various nozzles in removing water.
Since the nozzles are made of a rigid plastic, a row of rollers are used that extend along a lip of the nozzle for contacting the vehicle surface, and therefore reduce the amount of scraping of the surface. Such nozzles, however, tend to be relatively heavy and expensive to manufacture.
There thus remains a need for an air blower system that is compact and operates relatively quietly, has generally uniform air flow through the various nozzles, and has a nozzle assembly that locates the nozzles close to a vehicle surface without marring the surface and moves readily to conform to the vehicle surface as the vehicle moves past the nozzles.